MetalSucks

All this talk about Slash’s upcoming solo album has got me playing “Fantasy Velvet Revolver” in my head once again. Though I still hold out hope that Axl’s idea of having Perry Farrell front the band comes to fruition, I know in my heart that there’s probably a better chance of Scott Weiland rejoining the band, which is admittedly a pretty remote possibility. Remote like Siberia.

So looking through the list of vocalists purportedly gracing the axeman’s new record, I see a number of qualified albeit unlikely candidates to fill Weiland’s still-vacant spot. Yeah, it would be a heavy music lover’s dream to have Ozzy Osbourne sing for the band, considering the craptastic nature of his last few solo albums. Realistically, that would be an unholy managerial nightmare with the potential capacity to yield a catastrophic clusterfuck to put the legal woes of Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses to shame. Dave Grohl’s too busy counting his money and playing geriatric rock with his idols to commit to yet another band. These days, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister have the commercial drawing power of, well, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister, and maybe would shift a few more units than a Velvet Revolver fronted by an unknown (anyone remember Eric Dover or Rod Jackson?) or that dude from Spacehog. Don’t even get me started on Fergie.

One other name on that list, however, actually makes sense…

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The Starbucks Incident

Yes, I am going to continue to bitch about Slash. I understand that Slash is not Jimi Hendrix but this might be the single biggest betrayal to my formative years since Metallica released everything they’ve released from Load on, and I need to mourn.

So. Some lady says that the following singers are all on Slash’s new solo album, How Could Taking My Cues from Carlos Santana Possibly Go Wrong? I have added my own thoughts because that’s what we do around here. Click to read more…

Here’s Zakk Wylde talking to Tartarean Desire a few years back… I’ve added some emphasis:

“What would be a good career move is to get Eminem to sing on a Black Label album. It would stir up some controversy with the Hell’s Angels of Iron if you had Eminem rapping on a Black Label album. I go first off I hate fucking rap music, so what the fuck would I want to have that mother fucker singing on my fucking album… Because he is popular?”

And here’s Zakk ranting about rap and rap metal back in 2006:

Of course, ideals are nothing in the face of a paycheck. And so here we are, it’s almost 2010, and Zakk Wylde has recorded a guest guitar solo on Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise 20XX” for DJ Hero, a video game for people who think that Guitar Hero is too sophisticated.

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So unless you spent your summer someplace where there’s no internet or any way to get metal news, you should be aware that Zakk Wylde a) has been replaced by Firewind’s Gus G. as Ozzy’s new guitarist and b) got the news when Ozzy did an interview announcing he was parting ways from his longtime axe-slinger, because apparently Ozzy and Sharon are too chickenshit to actually pick up the phone and make a difficult call. And so it would be completely within reason for Zakk to have nothing but terrible things to say about all parties involved – in fact, I kinda expected him to do just that. This is the man, after all, who threatened to kill Dave Grohl just for writing some riffs for Ozzy, and who basically attacked a journalist who repeated a rumor that Wylde’s pal Mike “Metal Mets” Piazza might be a homosexual.

But Wylde is actually taking the news really well, or, at least, he’s putting on a good face. From a recent interview with MusicRadar.com (via Blabbermouth):

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If I had a biological clock, I’d worry that’s it’s ticking. Because this is my second story about little kids today.

Reign in Blonde has made the awesome discovery of Jonah Rocks, who is a) the only four year old I’ve ever seen that can play the drums, and b) the only four year old I’m aware of that already has a stage name. He also seems to have an endorsement deal with Vic Firth. Holy poop.

For reasons that are totally beyond me, the videos of this lil’ tyke rockin’ out are not embeddable, but if you go here, you can watch Jonah play “Harvester of Sorrow” with more skill and passion than Lars Ulrich has displayed in years.

After the jump are some more links to Jonah playing. Some of these videos were made when he was only three years old!!!

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In case you haven’t been following along, Zakk Wylde has been plagued by hospital visits as of late. The last we heard, he was suffering from blood clots, and things got so bad that Black Label Society had to drop off a recent tour with Mudvayne.

Now Wylde’s wife, Barbaranne, has written into the BLS official fan forum to give an update on Zakk’s condition:

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I made a joke earlier this week about Zakk Wylde taking the news of Ozzy’s new guitarist so hard that he wound up in the hospital for blood clots – but this has turned into some apparently serious shit. Not only has Wylde and Black Label Society been forced to drop off the Pedal to the Metal tour with Mudvayne, Suicide Silence, and some band where the dude has a stupid hair cut and is married to an ex-porn star, but he has to visit the hospital every 48 hours. A statement from Zakk (by way of the always helpful Blabbermouth):

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First, let’s just talk about how we arrived at this place we currently find ourselves:

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I wasn’t even gonna report on this because, at this point, it’s barely news – I mean, we’ve known for awhile now that Gus G. from Firewind is Ozzy’s new guitarist. But so many of you e-mailed us this morning that I guess I have to write about this.

Randall Amps has jumped the gun somewhat by announcing that, yes, Gus G. is Ozzy’s new guitar player, and, yes, he will make his debut with Ozzy tomorrow at Blizzcon. Here are some random, uncollected thoughts:

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”The most beautiful words in the English language aren’t ‘I love you’ but ‘It’s benign.’ ”
-Deconstructing Harry

The Osbournes: Reloaded variety show got cancelled after like half an episode, Sharon literally can’t give away tickets to Ozzfest anymore, and the only times the singer makes headlines anymore are when he’s suing someone or getting a new guitarist. Why the fucking fuck would anyone want to get into the Ozzy business right now?

Ask MTV. According to Dan Rodriguez at Metal Insider, their famed reality show, The Osbournes, is coming back, “this time focusing mostly on Kelly and her bizarre, 19 year-old, Powder-esque shithead of a fiancee.”

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Here’s a video of a kid playing Ozzy’s “Mr. Crowley” at the “expert” level on Guitar Hero… while solving two Rubik’s Cubes at the same fucking time. There’s clearly no practical use whatsoever for this skill and I’d seriously question whether or not this kid has ever seen the sun and/or will ever get laid… but at the same time, I kinda feel like someone should just give him a scholarship to Harvard or something. ‘Cause clearly, if this little dude puts his mind to it, he’ll put a stop to cancer, AIDS, the fighting in the Middle East, world hunger, and whatever the fuck else he pleases.

-AR

[via Topless Robot]

It’s 4 pm, and right about now we’re either interviewing someone or other or watching Job for a Cowboy. Either way, I hope we’re having a fun time.

Here’s what happened in MetalSucks Land this week:

• We’re streaming Iron Age’s The Sleeping Eye in its entirety!
• Current Coheed & Cambria/former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie discussed metal with us.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi is home for tour and very busy blogging for us.
• Our girl Grim Kim visited Birmingham, England, the birthplace of metal.
• We checked out the latest releases from Assjack and Dysrhythmia.
• It looks Ozzy has hired Firewind’s Gus G. to replace Zakk Wylde. And that got us thinking about the legacies of former Ozzy axe slingers Jake E. Lee and Joe Holmes.

Have a good weekend, everybody. I know I will.

-AR

Dan Rodriguez at Metal Insider, where I first saw the below, wonders if the ad is “poking fun” at the Ozzy guitarist search, but I’m fairly certain it’s just a very, very unfortunate coincidence. As far as whether or not the “chimp’s name is a shot at Mr. E. Lee,” well, I would actually believe that.

-AR

To clarify my comments on Jake E. Lee yesterday: I wasn’t attacking  Mr. Lee’s technical skill. But, with all due respect to my man Vince, I’m not a fan of “Bark at the Moon” or anything else from the Lee era, for that matter. Yes, it sucks that Sharon fired him by telegram, but I actually think Zakk got it worse – ’cause Zakk’s humiliation was public. Just sayin’.

ANYWAY, I don’t make apologies for my slight to Joe Holmes. Holmes replaced Zakk Wylde after the release of Ozzmosis ’cause Zakk was off chasing a potential gig with Guns N’ Roses (Somewhere there are demos of a GN’R featuring co-leads by Slash and Zakk, and although I’m sure that music had guitar-masturbation overload, I’d still love to hear them some day. Fat chance, I know.). The big stink about Holmes at the time was that he’d been a student of Randy Rhodes and was therefore supposed to be the second coming or something.

No such luck – poor dude stayed with Ozzy until Zakk returned in 2000, and never even got to record with Ozzy… actually, as far as I know, he’s the only person to be in Ozzy’s band for so long and not get to make an album. He did get to play on the song “Walk on Water” from the movie Beavies and Butthead Do America, and worked on Down to Earth – in fact, several songs he co-wrote remain on that record, although none of them are memorable (and Earth pretty much blows, although I blame producer Tim Palmer as much as anyone).

I never saw Holmes live with Ozzy, but I did manage to find this video of him playing “Perry Mason” on Ozzfest. It’s edited all to fuck but it does give you a sense of what Holmes must’ve been like live. He’s a scrawny motherfucker, but otherwise seems to have “the look” down, at least. Also, the video has some boobies as an added bonus.

Side note: Holmes also played with Lizzy Borden for awhile, but, if I’m not mistaken, never got to play on a Borden album. It’s like the dude was cursed or something.

-AR

Several of you justifiably called out Axl yesterday for dissing Jake E. Lee in his post about Ozzy’s probable new guitar player, Firewind’s Gus G. Lee could definitely shred, and although his  contribution to the Ozzy legacy ultimately doesn’t stack up against Rhoads or Wylde, he did write the killer riff for “Bark at the Moon” which is actually one of my favorite Ozzy riffs ever.

So whilst making sure I had my historical facts straight here, I managed to turn up this nugget from the Wikipedia page for Badlands, the band Jake E. Lee formed after being fired by Ozzy:

After touring with Ozzy Osbourne in support of the Ultimate Sin album, Lee was fired in a telegram from Sharon Osborne while working on one of his muscle cars back in Los Angeles. Lee was completely caught off guard at the time of his firing and was under the impression he had a solid working gig with the Osborne camp.

Heyo! Sound familiar? Maybe Sharon will officially lay the gauntlet down on Wylde via Twitter. That’d be classy.

Here are Badlands performing “Highwire” live. Lee shreds. And that’s Ray Gillen on the mic, who’d just been let go from Black Sabbath upon forming Badlands with Lee.

-VN

So I’ve been living in the UK for about four months now, and have managed to take in quite a lot of this “culture” thing they’re so fond of over here. I’ve been to nine countries, eight major metal festivals, and a handful of cities in Ol’ Blighty itself; I’ve gate-crashed hotel parties in Norway with the drummer of Swallow the Sun, stage-dived into a sea of muddy grind freaks in the Czech Republic, gotten roaring drunk with Wolves in the Throne Room in the Netherlands, met Gaahl’s boyfriend in France, gotten lost in Rome, watched Electric Wizard blow an amp in Manchester, lost my mind to Eyehategod at Hellfest, seen Manowar (‘nuff said there) – and that was just the first couple months. Between all the metal, mud, bruises, whiskey, calimocho, hard cider, and terrifying Czech liquor (Becherovka and Fernet are no fucking joke, even if it is Kevin Sharp and Danny Herrera pouring you a shot), I realized that, somehow, something was still missing.

To my immense chagrin, I had yet to take that all-too-necessary pilgrimage up through the Black Country and into the Unholy Land itself – to Birmingham, England. Every metaller worth his leather (and several million other music fans besides) knows exactly why this unimpressive, coal-smudged city matters so much. Birmingham is the ancestral home of heavy metal. Everything – whether it be doom, black metal, powerviolence, or even the plague that is deathcore – everything came from here. The famed Mermaid Pub provided a fertile breeding ground for extreme metal, nestled as it was in a dodgy part of town where the cops ignored the punkers and longhairs milling around out front as the early rumblings of a deadly new sound thundered away upstairs The city itself was the original stomping ground of the dirty sexy hard rock’n’roll of Led Zeppelin, the NWOBHM gods in Judas Priest, the crusty proto-grind of Sore Throat, the scummy grindcore forefathers of Napalm Death, the industrial noise terror of Godflesh, and the one and only BLACK FUCKING SABBATH.

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Here’s something else Zakk Wylde can hear about for the first time over the internet.

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Now the nausea’s
In my guts
And I’m wrestling with doubt
The kind you get when your heroes
Sell you out
And as I watch the drawbridge come down
There’s mass extinction
On my mind
Human cruelty stains my thoughts jet black
I’ve got this feeling
Like things have gone too far and now we can’t get back

Here’s more fun shit that happened in the world of metal this week:

• We debuted new videos from Cradle of Filth and Arsonists Get All the Girls.
• We got exclusive tour blogs from Bison B.C.’s Dan And and Woe of Tyrants’ Chris Catanzaro.
• We spoke to members of Winds of Plague, Decrepit Birth and Born of Osiris.
• I counted down 50 things I love about Pig Destroyer, and then added a 51st.
• Ulrich Vs. Mustaine Vs. Ian and Zakk Vs. Ozzy made us laugh with glee.
• Kerry King Vs. Killswitch Engage was pretty funny, too.
• Dallas Coyle answered more of your questions.

Vince gets back from vacation tonight right around the time Repulsion take the stage, and then tomorrow, hopefully, Craig’s List will lead us to some Tool tickets. See ya Monday!

-AR

Metal’s First Couple, in happier times.

Okay. I’m starting to feel bad for Zakk Wylde. And I hate feeling bad for Zakk Wylde, ’cause then I can’t poke fun at him.

But according to Blabbermouth, The Only Southerner Ever to be Born in New Jersey called into another radio station – this one in Kansas City – and went on a rant ever more hostile towards Ozzy than the one from yesterday. Here’s a transcript:

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Holy shit, what an exciting morning this is turning out to be.

So. As you may recall, Ozzy recently revealed that he was replacing Zakk Wylde, to which Wylde responded, in so many words: “Huh?”

Then, a few days later, Wylde upgraded his “Huh?” to a “It’s all good,” even though everything we’ve heard tells us that it is not all good.

And it isn’t. For the burly man from dirty Jerz is Zakk Denylde no more. He recently called in to a radio station in Eugene fucking Oregon, of all places, and when asked about the whole sitch with the Ozzman, responded thusly:

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